EUROGIRO

News Contents 2 /

May

200

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THE INTERNATIONAL ELECTRONIC PAYMENT NETWORK

Striving to meet the2 challenges

Deutsche Postbank wants 2 to perform payment opera-tions for other banks

Electronic bill presentment3 and payment

Important new money 4 order product

Why is CTT - Correios de 4 Portugal so eager to jointhe new TMO project?

10th Anniversary Board 5 meeting with a focus on the future

Automation of counter 5 network

Promotion campaign 6 in France

Quality and Return 7 of Payments

La Poste, Senegal at a glance8

Agreement for a transatlantic gatewayfor credit payment signed betweenEurogiro and Federal Reserve Bank(FRB) of the USA limited production of the service will be implemented late in 2003 witha limited number of US banks and 5 Eurogiro members in Austria,Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The vision for the transatlantic service is thatall European bank accounts can be reachedfrom any US bank that is part of the ACH(Automated Clearing House) system. Alsothat any account connected to the US-ACHcan be reached from Europe. A simple con-verter (implemented by Eurogiro) betweenthe US format and the international Swift for-mat ensures that these transatlantic paymentscan be exchanged at very low costs, i.e. atfees (excluding foreign exchange) of between1 and 3 USD. This is very attractive com-pared to the present fees offered in the mar-ket. The product is mainly targeted at lowvalue payments initiated by corporates andinstitutions. For these cost efficiency and100% STP (Straight Through Processing) arekey success factors. However, potentially allretail and corporate payments could be sentvia the gateway. Of particular importance inensuring low costs of the transatlantic gate-way is the use of existing infrastructures. Inthe US the domestic ACH system can also beused to send/receive international payments,while the European counterparts use theexisting Eurogiro system and the domesticclearing system to transmit through thetransatlantic gateway.

The co-operation agreement was signed inmid March by the Federal Reserve Bank andEurogiro Network A/S, and subsequently byall 5 pilots (Bawag/PSK, Deutsche Postbank,Postbank/ING, PostFinance/Swiss Post andUK Girobank). On 19 March Eurogirosigned with the software developer: Rambøll-Informatik, which is a leading Nordic ITdevelopment group. The development will bebased on a central database to support mes-sage type conversion and the developmentwill be carried out in parallel with the TMO(Tele Money Order) product development,which will use the same database.

The key dates are:

April – August 2003: Design, development and initial testing

August - 30 October 2003:Member testing, training and take-over testing

1 November 2003:Pilot production start

Eurogiro made a joint presentation with FRBat the international NACHA payment confer-

ence in Orlando early May 2003. Based onthe feedback received, the interest of the USbanking community seems very high.

It is the vision to expand the transatlanticgateway to other European countries as soonas sufficient experience has been gatheredfrom the limited production, and the conceptcould potentially also be expanded to othercountries outside Europe.

The strategic alliance between Eurogiro andFRB for the transatlantic gateway is fully inline with the gateway strategy of Eurogiro,whereby increased connectivity for mem-bers/partners is secured at low costs.

Henrik Parl, Eurogiro

Elizabeth McQuerry,Federal Reserve Bank

Product features

• 3-day (OUR) credit transfer• Low costs with 100% STP• Access to all accounts in a country is

secured by FRB in the US and byEurogiro members in their countries

• Can be handled as domestic USD payment in the US system

• Full transparency and certainty of payment

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NEWS / INFORMATION

Striving to meet the challengesThis issue of the Eurogiro News will provide you with updates onongoing activities within member organisations.

■ In Switzerland “Yellowbill” has paved the way for a breakthrough in the Electronic BillPresentment and Payment (EBPP) area, and at the same time strengthened the role ofPostFinance as a leading payment service provider in Switzerland.

Portugal informs us of the reasons behind their participation in the TMO project. InRomania, Posta Romana continues the computerisation of their post offices and in France,La Poste has launched a marketing campaign for international credit transfers.

You will also find an article from the most recent member, La Poste in Senegal, and I takethe opportunity to welcome La Poste to Eurogiro.

In addition you will find information on the outcome of the recent Eurogiro Board Meeting,the co-operation with the Federal Reserve Bank in the U.S.A., the co-operation with theUPU on the TMO product and a report from the Eurogiro Quality Seminar, held inCopenhagen late March.

I hope you will find the topics interesting – and also that you will see the high level ofactivity reflected herein as a clear indication that all participants in the Eurogiro co-opera-tion strives to meet the challenges in the “world of payments”.

I wish you all an enjoyable read.

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Eurogiro News is a magazine for the promotion of information, ideas and knowledge within the Eurogiro community.

Eurogiro News is published quarterly by:

Eurogiro Network A/SCarl Gustavs Gade 3, 1. tvDK- 2630 TaastrupDenmarkTel.: +45 43 71 27 72Fax: +45 43 71 26 62e-mail: eurogiro@eurogiro.com

Editor-in-Chief: Søren Rose

Subscription enquiries: Kai Thygesen, EditorTel.: +45 43 31 12 47e-mail: kai@eurogiro.comwww.eurogiro.com

No part of this publication may be photocopied or otherwise reproduced without the written consent of EurogiroNetwork A/S

Printed by: Schultz Grafisk

Although Eurogiro Network A/S has madeevery effort to ensure the accuracy of thispublication, neither it nor any contributorcan accept any legal responsibility whatso-ever for consequences that may arise fromerrors or omissions or any opinions oradvice given.

Final editing: May 2003ISSN: 1727-7450

The Eurogiro network is an internationalelectronic payment network for the postalfinancial institutions.The Eurogiro network is the only electroniccross-border payment system which coversboth postal and bank products.

Eurogiro has 39 member institutions.Although Western Europe is the core area,Eurogiro now spans five continents. The electronic payment system of Eurogirois administered by Eurogiro Network A/S in Copenhagen which also provides the organisational framework for the furtherdevelopment of the co-operation. The com-pany is owned by 15 European members.

Eurogiro Member institutions:

Austria: PSK/BAWAG • Belgium: Postcheque• Brazil: Empresa Brasileira de Correios eTelègrafos • Canada: National Bank ofCanada • Cape Verde: Correios de Cabo Verde• China: China Post • Croatia: Hrvastska Post• Czech Republic: CSOB a.s. • Denmark:Danske Bank A/S • Estonia: Sampo Pank •Finland: Sampo Bank Plc • France: La Poste •Germany: Deutsche Postbank AG • Greece:Hellenic Post • Hungary: Magyar Posta •Iceland: Iceland Post • Ireland: AN-Post •Israel: Israel Postal Authority • Italy: PosteItaliane • Japan: Postal Savings Bureau •Latvia: Latvia Post • Luxembourg: P & T •Morocco: Barid Al Maghrib • Netherlands:ING Bank N.V./Postbank N.V. • Portugal:CTT Correios • Romania: Banc Post andPosta Romana • Senegal: La poste • Slovakia:Postova Banka • Slovenia: Postn bankaSlovenije d.d. • Spain: BBVA and Correos yTelegrafos • Sweden: Postgirot Bank •Switzerland: Swiss Post Postfinance • Tunisia:La Poste • Turkey: General Directorate ofPost • United Kingdom: Girobank PLC •USA: Deutsche Bank • Serbia & Montenegro:Postal Savings Bank of Yugoslavia.

C O M M E N T A R Y

Søren Rose, Editor-in-Chief andDeputy ManagingDirector

Dirk Berensmann, memberof the Board of Directorsof Deutsche Postbank

■ Deutsche Postbank AG is now making thetechnical and organisational changes that willallow it to perform payment and other back-office operations for other banks and savingsinstitutions by the end of this year. DirkBerensmann, the Postbank Board memberresponsible for IT and Operations on thePostbank Board, is confident that this willbecome an important new business area."Because of our technological advances andour very large volumes, which allow us toachieve very favourable unit costs, we’recertain that we will be a very interestingpartner for other banks," he said. "We want tomake the most of this opportunity."

Deutsche Postbank wants to performpayment operations for other banksTechnical and organisational preparations pave way for third-partybusiness of bank subsidiary.

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Electronic bill presentment and payment yellowbill - The EBPP system from Swiss Post.

■ The yellowbill system from Swiss Postenables billers in Switzerland to sendelectronic invoices via the Internet, which canbe paid immediately by the customer. Therecipient can pay the amount due with justthree clicks of the mouse. It was developed in2001 by PostFinance and yellowworld, the E-Fulfilment company of Swiss Post. Withinonly 6 months the system was designed andwent live in November 2001. After a shortpilot-run the official start took place onFebruary 4, 2002.

Functionality of yellowbillThe main idea of yellowbill is to transport thenecessary data used for the payment to thecustomer via his internet banking application,

such as yellownet of PostFinance. On thisplatform the customer can use this virtualpayment instruction to place a payment order.In addition to the payment data there is a linkto the bill detail, which can be provided byyellowbill or by the biller himself in HTMLor PDF. This means that paper invoices andin-payment slips can be replaced by electro-nic documents. The invoice is both sent andpaid via the Internet.

yellowbill is built as an open system and canbe linked to other EBPP systems andproviders. It is for the moment only suitablefor B2C-bills. There are plans to co-operatewith other financial institutions and service

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providers, as well as an enlargement to handlealso B2B-bills.

yellowbill offers billers considerable savingspotential, as they no longer have to print outand mail invoices and they are taking theiraccounts receivable management into a newera. As the due date and all reference numbersare entered automatically, they receive theirmoney promptly and can profit from betterdata quality and lesser costs.

The customers benefit too, as they don't needto type in the payment data as they otherwisewould with online banking programs. The billcan be paid with just three mouse clicks. Thisis convenient, saves time and - particularlyimportant for the Internet - is secure.

Breakthrough in EBPPSwisscom Fixnet has decided recently to useyellowbill and plans to roll out the system inJune 2003. Electronic bill presentment andpayment is especially suitable for companiesthat mail large quantities of invoices.Swisscom Fixnet's decision to use yellowbillbrings the service a significant step closer tomarket breakthrough. With 40 million invoi-ces mailed each year, there is considerablepotential for yellowbill to become widelyused. Several well-known companies inSwitzerland already use the system or havedecided to use it in future. They includeOrange, Cornèr (Visa Card Center),Cablecom (TV-net provider), T-Systems Card

Services (operator of customer card systemsfor 15 Swiss companies), Swiss FederalRailways (for general rail passes) and severalhealth insurances.

Innovative Swiss Postyellowbill is one way in which Swiss Post iscountering the gradual substitution of physi-cal mail. At the same time, the organisation isstrengthening its role as a leading paymentservices provider in Switzerland. PostFinanceis already the number one in Switzerland withits yellownet online banking service. Some370,000 customers manage over half a mil-lion accounts electronically. The requirementfor using yellowbill is a Yellow Account; thisenables users to register free for yellownet.

For more information or a demo version ofyellowbill:www.postfinance.chwww.yellowbill.ch

pay bills with just three clicks of the mouse!

Postbank, in co-operation with SAP, is nowintroducing a banking software system thatwill provide a platform for this new businessinitiative. The system has been developed sothat it not only suits Postbank’s own needs butcan be adapted to serve the specific needs ofoutside customers.Bonn-based Postbank is the only major bankso far to have brought all its back-office func-tions under central control, which puts it in a

position to offer similar services to otherbanks at very attractive rates. The vast major-ity of Postbank processes will have been con-verted to the new SAP banking software byautumn 2003.The new business division will be entrusted toPostbank employees at Postbank’s offices inBerlin and Frankfurt; Leipzig may be added ifbusiness conditions allow it. Postbank is nowopen to new legal arrangements in which

future partners can participate.

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Important new money order productEurogiro is developing a two-day Tele Money Order (TMO) in co-operation with the Universal Postal Union (UPU).

■ Cash transactions are widely used in thepostal world as well as within the Eurogironetwork. Therefore it makes sense to developthe new enhanced money order - TMOtogether with UPU. It allows members fromboth networks to benefit from the combinedgeographical coverage and the unique branchnetwork, as well as from the long-standingexperience in payment handling andtraditional joint agreements.

The TMO is a two-day cash payment product.The TMO is uniquely mixing modern Track& Trace techniques and well proven Eurogirobulking principles, and further it is built with-in the Postal tradition of multilateral agree-ments. It is a fully electronic product with nopaper required, once it has been keyed orscanned into the system. The new moneyorder is built, owned and controlled by themembers. Eurogiro and UPU facilitate thedevelopment and Eurogiro Network A/Sadministrates the central TMO database,where all transactions are logged and

processed. The product is handled by wellknown postal and banking networks and theextensive branch networks makes it easy forend customers to access the product.

The first wave of Eurogiro members havealready signed as pilots on the new productand they are expected to test during the thirdquarter and go into live production in thefourth quarter of 2003. Other Eurogiro mem-bers have acted as a reference group in thedevelopment.

Organisations offering the new TMO will beable to offer their customers a medium speedproduct at a medium price. It is not as rapidas on-line urgent cash services, but fasterthan the existing money order. The transmit-ted currencies are set to both EUR and USD,but sending and receiving institutions can fur-ther accept in-payment/out-payment in a localcurrency and possibly gain further income onthe foreign exchange.

As the product is fully member–owned, theset-up ensures that all revenue generated bythis service is kept within the participatingorganisations, who set their terms and condi-tions towards partners and customers accor-ding to their own business considerations.The TMO lends itself well to higher base linerevenue than existing slower and faster cashservices. The TMO database is expected to beavailable for testing by Eurogiro membersfrom 25 August 2003.

The TMO will be on the agenda at theEurogiro General User Group Meeting heldin Munich 21-23 May, where all Eurogiromembers and representatives from UPU areinvited. All Eurogiro members besides theexisting pilots have already received an invi-tation to join the TMO product either as a“pilot” or at a later stage.

Product features

• 2-day OUR product• Full price transparency – full amount paid out to receiver• Transmitted currencies: EUR, USD• Sending customer informs receiving customer• Responsibility of sending institution: provide necessary & valida-

ted data, send payment to database as batch by end of day• Out-payment in any post office on-line, or with fax/e-mail/phone,

subject to confirmation at database and presentation of proof ofpersonal ID, transaction reference number/ID and password, if pro-vided by sending customer

• Payment can be tracked and traced• Validity of payment: 30 calendar days, after which period funds are

returned • Settlement: Default to set funds at disposal of receiving institution

on value date (value date settlement) on mutual accounts/ESSP, orbilling as option

• Remuneration: receiving institution should be remunerated with aflat fee to be agreed upon bilaterally

Member benefits

• Inquiries: not to be initiated before value date• MT103-66, the TMO is built on existing Eurogiro product codes• Offer a medium product – maximum 2 working-day flow • Transmitted Currencies: EUR, USD - cover most of the globe• Security - sending customer informs receiving customer• Very high STP ratio• Payment can be tracked and traced• Sending institution determine income from sending fee and perhaps

foreign exchange (FX)• Receiving institution sets receipt fee with sending institution and

perhaps foreign exchange (FX)• MT103-66 the TMO is built on existing Eurogiro product codes• Turn-key out-payment package• Service guarantee via sign-on to service level agreement• Electronic transmission, also of administrative messages• Expected connection to UPU/IFS for further coverage• Add-on business to already existing branch network

■ Starting with the commercial one. For over30 years, CTT - Correios de Portugal has beenoffering two international money transferservices or products to its clients; the postalmoney orders, one normal and one urgent.The urgent one, the telegraphic money order,was abandoned and substituted back in 1999by the Western Union service. Since then wehave offered a very fast 15-minute service /product and a much slower one, the moneyorder, a five day product. But this is not theonly differentiation in the services offered. Wehave also had a wide pricing gap between thetwo services / products. So from thecommercial point of view it would be veryinteresting to be able to offer a product /

service which would offer a service inbetween those currently offered, one that isperhaps not as fast as the Western Unionservice but much less expensive.

Regarding the technical point of view. CTT isin the process of rolling out the new front-office system and the new international mo-ney transfer application. These two new sys-tems now enable CTT not only to improveservice quality regarding the existing pro-ducts but, much more importantly, to imple-ment new products / services with a high per-centage of automation as well asdecentralisation.

For the above reasons it is “understandable”why CTT immediately showed an enormousinterest when it heard about a probable imple-mentation of a two day product to be sup-ported by Eurogiro, with a possible link toUPU.

Why is CTT - Correios de Portugal so eager to join the new TMO project?

There are essentially two reasons for this: one is commercial, and the other for technical / innovative reasons.

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■ The Romanian Post Office has 35,000employees covering 7,132 outlets with a totalpopulation served of nearly 23 million.Besides being with the market leader in theprovision of postal services, the RomanianPost Office is also endowed with the right toprovide value–added services, such as:foreign trade services, developing software,currency exchange services, cross borderpayments, consultancy services, transportservices, etc. The Romanian Post has toensure the conditions of integrating theRomanian postal services in the internationalpostal services system and of keeping up withthe technological and quality standards whichare globally accepted.

Chairman & CEO, Mr Gabriel Mateescudefines the vision of the Romanian PostOffice:”To be recognised as an efficient commercialpostal business operating to the highestEuropean standards, offering affordable andvalue for money services to the businesscommunity and the people of Romania“

The accelerated use of information and com-munication technologies and the advent of the

■ The meeting confirmed Eurogiro’s emer-ging role as a gateway provider for its mem-bers and alliance partners. The aim is to pro-vide increased volumes, product choice andgeographical coverage to members andalliance partners, while reducing the costs ofimplementing these solutions. The meetingapproved activities to continue discussionswith key players in the new European pay-ment infra-structure, card companies and newentrants into the payment market. The meet-ing also approved the roadmap for continueddiscussions with Swift aimed at reducing ITcosts for Eurogiro members with SwiftNet.A key highlight from the meeting was theannouncement that all parties have nowsigned the agreement for a transatlantic gate-way between 5 Eurogiro members in Europeand the Federal Reserve ACH system in theUSA.

Eurogiro is also currently having discussionswith Western Union and alternative providersof Urgent cash services for a new 5-year con-tract period. An announcement on choice ofpartner will be given over the summer.

Finally, the meeting approved a newGovernance structure. One of the implica-tions is a new meeting structure, where allBoard members, senior representatives of

non-shareholder countries and senior repre-sentatives from alliance partners will be invi-ted to a common strategic seminar concerningpayment business.

The subsequent Board meetings will takeplace in Paris (October 2003), Italy (spring2004) and Luxembourg (autumn 2004).

Automation of counter networkPosta Romana, the national postal operator of Romania, has great success in computerising the post officenetwork.

10th Anniversary Board meeting with a focus on the futurePostFinance/Swiss Post was an excellent host for the 10th Anniversary Board meeting which took place in thewonderful location of Interlaken.

Eurogiro Board Meeting, Interlaken April 2003

Gabriel Mateescu, Chairman and CEO, Posta Romana

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■ In January this year, La Poste launched itsfirst campaign to promote international credittransfers to its customers. Close to half amillion individuals in the region of Lille weretargeted. Lille is one of La Poste’s largestbranches, located in the North of France, andmainly chosen because of its situation close toother countries such as Belgium, Germany,Luxembourg and England.

This advertisement took the form of a leaflet,which systematically was attached to the cho-sen customers’ account statements. In fact,our clients at La Poste may opt for monthlystatements or, also free of charge, for state-ments to be sent to them on a weekly basis.

The first objective of this campaign wasawareness. We believe our clients are notaware they can turn to La Poste when needingto instruct international credit transfers. Infact most of the previous studies we had con-ducted had shown that our own clients wereasking other banks to provide a service theycould now easily get from us.

The message in our leaflet was the following:La Poste has such a product, it is simple andit is cheap. We also specified that La Postecould reach all the banks in more than 50countries in the world. And at a cheaper pricefor its customers than most of the other banksin France, with a high quality guarantee.

Our customers were also invited to send backthe reverse of the leaflet with their name andaddress. Being La Poste, we could remindthem no stamp was needed.

We received a few thousand responses. To allof them was sent in return a package with abrochure containing useful information onhow to use the service.

Our second objective was to get to know bet-ter our potential customers. To the open ques-tion « what countries would you be interestedin?» most of our customers not only men-tioned one but a whole list of destinations. Aswe thought, our targeted clients were mainlyinterested in sending credit transfers to coun-tries in European countries or to the UnitedStates.

The reply coupons’ data of these flyers werealso crossed with our own customer data.Parameters such as monthly credits onaccount, average account balance or totalassets of the client were compared to those ofthe population targeted in this campaign.

It was evident that our potential internationalcredit transfers users had more money ontheir different accounts and were receivingsignificantly more monthly credits than wasaverage in our population.

When considered with other data, these ele-ments are an important confirmation to us.The information tells us on which countrieswe should emphasise our efforts and how todevelop our products according to our cus-tomers’ needs, and also to better target afuture national campaign and adapt our com-munication messages.

La Poste is working to build a full range ofinternational services in order to respond tothe needs of its customers.

Promotion campaign in FranceLa Poste promotes its international credit transfers.

Guy-David Schneider

Internet have put very powerful tools withinthe reach of citizens and governments, as wellas large and small businesses everywhere,and the Romanian Post Office is no excep-tion. A major objective of Romanian PostOffice is the computerisation of the post-office network. By the end of 2003, the num-ber of fully IT equipped post-offices will beextended to 500.

The post offices’ connection to the RomanianPost information network ensures the real-time provision of financial services. The ser-vices are based on the most modern data trans-mission protocols, which are using newmethods of accessing remote databases.“Today 343 post offices are fully automatedand provide the services of on-line money

orders, Eurogiro and Western Union. TheRomanian Post’s Eurogiro service is coveringthe countries of Austria, Denmark, Germany,Portugal, Switzerland and Turkey, whileSlovenia is under consideration” says GabrielMateescu. “Some of the advantages of pro-viding financial services is the reliable repu-tation, market coverage, working hours,progress and ongoing efforts in automation ofthe Romanian Post Office”.

Taking into account that the liberalisation ofthe telecommunications market in Romaniatook effect as from January 2003, that intro-ducing the competition for fixed telephonywill generate important investments, createnew jobs, promote business development;that there will be numerous opportunities inthe sectors that will take advantage of the

larger and better telecommunication infra-structure; that the liberalisation of telecommarket will have a positive effect on all theinvolved parties, customers as well as opera-tors, following the international tendencies,the Romanian Post Office is committed toenter the liberalised telecommunication mar-ket as telephone operator.

“So there is a world of opportunity for theRomanian Post. It is for our managers toimplement actions and ideas rapidly, becomemore innovative and more personal. There isa special role for us in e-commerce waiting tobe grabbed. We do not see the future as anobstacle because we are going in the rightdirection” – concludes Gabriel Mateescu.

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■ In Eurogiro quality has always been a highpriority. Although Eurogiro has one of thehighest Straight Through Process (STP) ratiosin the industry, Eurogiro has on an on-goingbasis hosted several quality seminars for themembers. On Friday 28th March 2003 theEurogiro Quality Seminar took place inCopenhagen with participants from a widerange of members. The issues discussed werethe main cost generators in relation tohandling of Eurogiro payments and how thesecould be minimised or eliminated. Mr RogerHens from La Poste, Belgium, focused hispresentation on issues related to “return ofpayments (ROP)” seen from the point of viewof the Belgium Post:

ROP: Outgoing Payments“With the implementation of a fully automa-ted treatment of ROP’s for outgoing ESSP-settled payments, we had to deal with a poorquality level of these payments, which oftenprovokes a stop in the processing chain. Afirst step of improvement was to store all out-going payments in a ‘History File’. The pay-ments from the post offices are online con-sultable for 6 months, and those from anaccount number for 3 months. The fully auto-mated system is based on the fact that everyout-payment from Belgium has a uniqueTransaction Reference Number (TRN). TheROP’s by means of MT198#93, are fullyautomated for ESSP settled payments”, saidRoger Hens.

How does the handling of ‘ROP’work within the Belgium Post?“The received MT198#93-payment (ROP) isstored in a file. By means of the ‘OriginalTRN’, information about the payment ispicked up from the ‘History File’. From themoment the Credit Advice MT910 of the

MT202’s. There is also a FAX alternative”explains Roger Hens.

“A non-STP payment, rejected by the opera-tor after a query and negative answer, is auto-matically injected in the relative MT198#93Envelope. Likewise, an MT198#93 envelopecan contain one or more returned items. ROPof an incoming payment also means a book-ing; either the money goes back to the LOROAccount or the MIRROR ESSP Account.”

According to Roger Hens: “To achieve a one-hundred percent automation of the ROP’s, LaPoste also needs the ‘History File’ for the in-payments. In this case, when a domesticcheque payment is not deliverable or expiredafter 3 months, or when a transfer to anaccount didn’t work, the original payment canbe picked up by means of its TRN. If notfound, an incorrect TRN may be present andLa Poste must find the correct one.” In con-clusion to his presentation Mr Roger Hensstated: “All Eurogiro members should createhigh quality MT198#93 payments so that theSTP-rate is maximum on the receiver’s side”.

The overall experience from Eurogiro is thatbilateral contact between members and sha-ring of “best practise” is a solid base for highquality.

Quality and Return of PaymentsA successful quality seminar was held to maintain and improve the high quality of the Eurogiro Network.

MT198#93 is received, an operator can ‘libe-rate’ this return of payment by reimbursementon an account number or by issuing a domes-tic cheque. Before giving back the money tothe ordering customer, a consultation of thefile ‘Litige Out-payments’ is done. Therecould meanwhile be a dispute on the pay-ments itself. Queries about received ‘ROP’s’are always possible”, Roger Hens continued.

Frequent errorsDespite the above measures, a number oferrors can occur. First, a ROP with wrong ornon-existing TRN means that the originaltransaction cannot be found and a query isnecessary. When getting the answer, mention-ing the correct TRN, the system contains atool to change the incorrect TRN so that theoriginal payment can be found. Secondly,errors in Tags or Fields or thirdly, mixed-upformats in the message type occur. Theseerrors cause non STP-processing and poorquality. Quality and STP also rely onMT198#93 payments and a correctly format-ted MT198#93 is a must to create a fullyautomatic system for processing these returnpayments”, concluded Roger Hens.

ROP: Incoming Payments“To effectuate a transfer (MT103#20) to anaccount or to issue a domestic payment(MT103#60), the system always debits the1000006-account. So if there is, after a cer-tain time, a ‘Return of Payment’, the book-keeper sees a credit on his statement. Bymeans of the TRN (on the statement) and thearchives on CD-ROM, the original paymentcan be found. An operator will key in the re-levant information. A special interactive pro-gram was developed for this purpose. All themandatory fields of a MT198#93-messagehave to be filled in. At the end of the day, theMT198#93 envelopes per country are createdand eventually, for ESSP, the corresponding

Quality Seminar, Copenhagen March 2003

Help Desk (ENOC) moved

When HP acquired Compaq it decided toreduce the number of management centres.This resulted in the decision that the cen-tre in the South of France should be closedby May 2003. Eurogiro has worked closelywith HP to find a new centre and a solu-tion that fulfils our service level require-ments. In mid January it was decided tomove the central systems (EIS and CA)to a hosting facility in Denmark and theHelp Desk and monitoring services toMalmö in Sweden. With this solution weare able to build on the general activitiesto create a centre across the bridge be-tween Denmark and Sweden.

Even with the short timeframe, the moveof the systems and services was a successthanks to the great support and co-opera-tion of the staff at the old and the newmanagement centres. The move of ENOChas actually been an advantage forEurogiro:• Closer contact (Help Desk is less than 1

hour from Eurogiro office)• Project management and service deli-

very is now separated• Enhanced security at the hosting facility• Enhanced contingency procedures• Extended opening hours

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Subjects to be covered in the next issue:

◆ Update on urgent cash provider

◆ Asian seminar

◆ Eurogiro Technical User GroupMeeting

◆ Eurogiro New Member’s Seminar

◆ Eurogiro User Group Meeting

Please forward ideas, comments,articles etc. to:

Eurogiro Network A/SCarl Gustavs Gade 3, 1. tvDK-2630 TaastrupDenmarkAtt.: Kai Thygesene-mail: kai@eurogiro.com

20 - 21 MayNew Members’ Seminar, Munich

21 – 23 MayGeneral User Group Meeting, Munich

30 – 31 OctoberBoard Meeting, Paris

Autumn 2003Pension Seminar

Autumn 2003Asian Seminar

Eurogiro Activity CalendarSummer/Autumn 2003

La Poste, Senegal at a glanceLa Poste of Senegal has changed its status to become a national companyunder the law n° 95-24 dated on August 29, 1995.This change of statusoffers La Poste a larger autonomy as far as management is concerned inan environment in which competition is fierce.

■ La Poste is owned by the state of Senegal.The tasks allotted to La Poste are mainly tocollect, forward and distribute mail, totransfer funds, to collect and mobilise publicsavings and finally to undertake giro accounttransactions.

La Poste appointed a new General Managerin 2000 and a new organisational structurewas set in place to achieve the company’sobjectives. The different components of thisstructure are:• the General Assembly• the Board Meeting• the General Direction, which is itself a

structure with directions and departments:• 1 General Secretary• 11 Directions, of which 3 are operational

(retail, EMS, financial service)• 6 regional delegations over Dakar, Thies,

Kaolack, Saint-Louis, Tamba andZiguinchor.

• 5 specialist centres• 1 Web Site: www.laposte.sn

The company La Poste employs 1800 peopleworking in the network. The network offers tothe public the following contact points: 135post offices, a savings and giro centre, afinancial centre, 480 postal correspondents,50 Poste-chance and 90.000 postal boxes.

La Poste has signed conventions and bilateralagreements with many countries, administra-

Mr Iba Joseph Basse, General Director

Eurogiro Team, from left: Mr Doudou Gueye, Mr Serigne Gueye, Mrs Ramatoulaye Kane, Mr Alex Corenthin, and Mr Papa Demba Ndiaye

tions and banks throughout the world. LaPoste is a member of Universal Postal Union(UPU), Pan-African Postal Union (UPAP), dela Conférence Postale des Pays d’Afrique del’Ouest (CPAO), de l’Institut Mondial desCaisses d’Epargne (IMCE), and last but notleast, a member of the Eurogiro Networkcommunity since February 2003.

La Direction des Services Financiers Postauxis responsible for all financial activities. Thisdepartment is recognised by the Central Bankof West African Countries (BCEAO) and itsmain activities are: Savings accounts, Giroaccounts and Money orders.

234 billions FCFA were recorded in terms offinancial transactions in 2001, and a total of60 billions FCFA of deposits for 257.000accounts. Despite the intense competition, LaPoste achieves an overall market share ofapproximately 7%.

La Poste actively participates in the telecom-pensation of interbank operations and theinterbank monetique. For the coming years,the strategic aims of La Poste are:• to set in place procedures for settlement of

SPU (service postal universal)• to create affiliated links, in particular a

postal bank and a link to EMS• to be in a position to automatically perform

current account operations in all postaloffices, in sorting and distribution centresand in bank “guichets”

• to improve quality of service• to develop commercial strategies• to implement a policy of reinforcement of

human resources capacities• to expand its sub regional and international

partnership

In this context, La Poste is happy to be a memberof Eurogiro Network A/S and looks forward toa long-lasting and fruitful co-operation.

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